


Red

by Wicked_Seraph



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: And Eiji Does Not Handle It Well, Ash dies, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dubcon Kissing, M/M, Mild Blood, Necrophilia, Not-Quite-Necrophilia, Not-Quite-Necrophilia Is Probably More Apt., Stream of Consciousness, decomposition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:22:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24870742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wicked_Seraph/pseuds/Wicked_Seraph
Summary: Ash, however, defies this rules of this sphere. Assimilation requires bathing in vermilion, yet Ash’s flesh is powdery and bloodless. His lips are a striking violet, barely grazed and sown shut by the Reaper’s kiss.How very much like Ash, Eiji thinks,to snarl against rules like this.
Relationships: Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji
Comments: 7
Kudos: 21
Collections: Banana Fish: Devil's Circle





	Red

Eiji isn’t averse to change. The leaves change with the seasons; the wind begins to bite into his skin as days grow shorter.

Ash, too, changes. The uniform cream of his flesh begins to mottle, a kaleidoscope of changing colors that puts autumn’s leaves to shame. Ash’s flesh is warm, then cold; soft, then marble; when Eiji curls against him, running his fingers along the unfamiliar curves and slopes of his withering body, he marvels at how brittle he feels, in spite of his rigidity. 

Ash had thrived on such contradictions. An angel of death who had plucked Arthur's wings, imagined feathers becoming scattered adolescent gore as his body kissed concrete.

Amidst the cacophony of red and rust — there’s concrete here, too, but Arthur has long since become maggot food — Eiji wonders if the primordial sense of  _rightness_ is genetic: lingering, half-formed memories of gazing at the amnion, breathing salt and electrolytes. 

It’s easier if he pretends that the scattered gore is merely a chrysalis split apart. He can taste the iron and amine like mother’s milk heavy in his stomach; rivulets of crimson coat the fine hairs along his arms and chin.

Everything is wet and glistening and makes him yearn for drowning.

Everything is much simpler this way. 

Gone is the screaming, the begging, the painful thud of his heart. Gone is the rage, the disgust, the despair. 

A red void and life dripping steadily, their clear melody like dancing on piano keys. Simplicity is a welcome, numbing balm against the writhing of a thousand snakes in his skull.

Geysers spurt weakly from the gash in Max’s neck, in Ibe’s abdomen. 

The air is rich with the scent of copper and iron, sulfur and rot.

Red. 

So much red.

Blood coagulates around the outline of where Shorter once lay; he swears he can see each fingertip in the negative space within the 

red. 

So much red. 

If he looks carefully, he can see it shifting towards something rich like rhubarb or blackberries.

Ash, however, defies this rules of this sphere. Assimilation requires bathing in vermilion, yet Ash’s flesh is powdery and bloodless. His lips are a striking violet, barely grazed and sown shut by the Reaper’s kiss.

_How very much like Ash,_ Eiji thinks,  _to snarl against rules like this._

Eiji presses his lips against Ash’s, softer than the brush of a hummingbird’s wings, shivering at how quickly the heat seems to trickle out of him. Ash’s mouth is soft and pliant; Eiji traces his tongue along the thin membrane just beneath his lips. A warning flare of heat crackles in his stomach.

He can’t. He shouldn’t. Such things are much too decadent, and yet he cannot stop himself. Ash’s mouth has an odd, earthy flavor to it, reminding him of dank, green places and lichen coating the undersides of hidden crevices.

Eiji groans with the pleasure of it, the taste and wet of green so rich amidst the swirling, heady crimson. 

And yet… this lush, bewitching flavor violates the sanctity of such a space.

Death begets red. Red begets birth. Birth begets death. Such rules and cycles are woven into the fabric of their genes. 

Green is violation. Green is a dribbling, milky glob of spit hurled in protest. 

“Always so stubborn,” Eiji laughs, gently brushing back the hair from Ash’s face. “Even like this… still, you must be different.”

Eiji knows that Ash’s ears are sown shut; he can feel a bilious torrent of curses and pleas like a hand wrapped around his throat, fingernails digging his his trachea. There’s no reason for English, suffocating and blunt, in a room where those who speak it are mere dolls. 

Japanese is lush, overpowering red. Japanese tastes like heme and home; it clings to his tongue in a way that’s familiar and simple.

So simple.

“It’s better like this,” he whispers. “Sometimes you learn more when you understand less.”

Ash is still, lips still slick with the imprint of a stolen kiss.

“That’s alright,” Eiji says. "You really should rest. I’m glad to see you finally listening to me. You were never any good at doing what people told you to.”

Ash is still very pale and blue and decidedly not-red.

“Just this once, you should listen to me, Ash. This is the one time where we cannot have a choice. When we die, we become red.”

Eiji’s eyes overflow; his arms tremble violently, Ash’s shoulders quaking beneath his hands. “This is not the kind of fate you should fight against. Do you know what happens to people who rebel?”

Silence.

“Of course you don’t. I know you don’t believe in any of those things. But not believing in them doesn’t mean they’re not real. Men still die from diseases they refuse to think they have.”

And Ash is so terribly, terribly diseased. Iniquity like so many maggots wriggles beneath his skin. Eiji knows it’s mere illusion but he swears he can smell putrescine and bloat and foulness; the ground beneath Ash is dry and unsullied, yet Eiji’s stomach lurches in protest.

The vomit isn’t imaginary; he can taste his half-digested lunch, can feel it burn against his throat and trickle through his nose, horrifying pinkish froth — and isn’t that just fucking perfect? Even Eiji’s refuse is red. Quaint and obedient. Eiji feels a small burst of pride for such obsequience. Even his guts can figure it out.

“See?” Eiji whispers, voice hoarse against the agony in his throat. “It’s easy. So easy. So why can’t you do it?”

Ash does not deign to reply. His lips are as motionless as ever, the evidence of Eiji’s impulse evaporating in the chill of the dungeon.

That won’t do. Another caress against a blueberry mouth, parting Ash’s sleeping lips with his own. Another taste of the space between lip and gum, then deeper still, hot tongue slipping past teeth sticky with Ash’s bile. Emboldened, Eiji flicks his tongue against Ash’s; something hot and leaden stirs inside of him, sweeter than despair but too dark to be lust. Ash’s mouth is still earthy, though now slightly fetid and bitter and colder than it once was.

A small voice in the back of his head recoils; rationally, he knows he’s done more than just flirt with the dangerous boundary between mourning and desecration. Ash is the beauty of alabaster and bone emerging from a prison of soft tissue, sins of the spirit transmuted into abuse of the flesh. Eiji yearns to know these things, to feel Ash’s viscera emerge from its cocoon, to feel his blood and plasma viscous and heady against his fingers, against his tongue.

Were Ash alive, he would probably laugh at his naivete, chasing the memory of his first kiss from a dead man’s lips; thankfully, he is not, and Eiji can allow himself as much time as he needs to learn the particulars.

He doesn’t mind the smell, not really. It’s unpleasant, but no worse than what he was already familiar with. It’s as much a part of Ash as the scent of his cologne or gunpowder used to be. A dark part of him relishes it the way one might enjoy the crisp iron tang of fetters, or the suggestive leather scent of a well-worn collar.

This is Ash, after all. And even though his fluids have begun to stain the floors — even though the putrescine and rot has begun to contaminate every meal, every breath —

Eiji still finds him beautiful.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I had originally posted this under a different account, but found myself wanting to tweak a few things and share it under my main handle. So... here it is!
> 
> As always, constructive critiques are welcomed.


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